Ben Frost has Me by the Throat

For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of hearing Ben Frost already, think of an anthropomorphic, classically-trained lawnmower with explosive diarrhea (and the diarrhea is beautiful and you love it).  Frost has been one of the greatest contributions to noise in the last decade, making other noise acts like Black Dice seem amateurish and uneventful.  While noise has often been criticized for being unexceptional and indulgent, Frost's compositions are alive, melodic, expressive, and exciting. 

A native to Austrailia, Frost now resides in Iceland (the other middle of nowhere), where he has collaborated with the likes of Bjork and Nico Muhly.  The album I am reviewing today, By the Throat, was originally released last year, being the first full length recording since his critically-acclaimed breakthrough Theory of Machines, and is now finally available on vinyl (here, for instance).  Frost continues his style of glitchy fuzziness accompanied by moments of acoustic instrumentation (not unlike our favorite Azusa Plane).  At other moments, the music is undeniably electronica, but it's represented tastefully through this skewed, dark lens, decorated with distortion.  The music moves endlessly without tiring you, with huge, dense swells of static and warmth, engulfing you in its giant waves of controlled chaos.  I think of Frost's music as I do David Lynch's films, walking a thine line between the avant-garde and the accessible with perfect balance, with constant and (mostly) seamless shifts between moderate harmony and noisy intensity.  This is by far my favorite record of this year and last.

Digitalism (not the french electro-dance band)

I told a friend I had considered getting an mp3 player. “Are you serious?” she asked with surprise and suspicion.  I first assumed she was thinking, why do you want to be a part of that white earphone gadget-obsessed culture?  But of course, she was actually thinking, you really don’t have one already?  And the answer was no, I did not already have one.  Throughout my entire life, I’ve been slow, not necessarily reluctant, but slow to integrate new technology into my experiences of media.  Once a particular method of experience is learned and enjoyed, it’s not easy to alter the ritual without paranoia of a lessened effect.  I didn’t want to switch from cassette tapes to CDs because CDs were always skipping in the portable players.  I thought DVDs would fade like laserdiscs.  Mp3s, though, seemed especially detrimental to my experience of sound.  Those low bitrates sounded all gargly, downloading takes away the fun of record stores, and digital files lack the tangible artwork I’ve grown up flipping through during first listens.  After a while of living in New York, however, I realized I was hardly ever listening to my vinyl anymore.  My attention to recordings had diminished to moments of house cleaning or getting ready for work.  I also began to be intrigued with the easy organization of mp3 players.  In addition, I soon realized the benefits of the digital age: less production of plastics (dangerous ones like vinyl), less consumption of paper, having your entire collection at your fingertips, etc.  I concluded that vinyl could be my go-to, and I would back things up with mp3 copies for portable use/mixes.  I never acted on the idea, though, until one drunken rainy night when I lost my phone.

So you purchased an iphone?  Fuck no.  One of my problems with the mp3 market is that it has already been monopolized by Apple, with merely a few surviving competitors to itunes.  The fascist lack of freedom in Apple products also leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  So what did I do?  I went to the lesser of two evils: Google.  Not exactly the underground choice, but android phones are neat!  I decided to go with the brand new Mytouch 3G Slide.  Below is a comparison to the current generation of iphone.

Keypad.  I don’t like punching around on the screen, hoping for accuracy.  This has a slide-out full keypad for cavemen like me.

Headphones.  The headphones are shit; I think Apple’s shit headphones are even better.  Best to use your own.  Who can keep those little earpieces in, anyways?  Not me.

Music player. About the same as the iphone’s, though I like the fluid album flipping on Apple’s version a little better, even if it’s not necessary.

Other shit.  Android has way more of all that extra cell phone crap.  But we’re not discussing that here.

Have mp3s ruined my life?  Not yet.  The other day while walking home after a hard day of work, I listened to the new Lightning Bolt record and felt so much better.  Not having a car in New York, I had forgotten how important it was to have a soundtrack to your escape.  Here’s to new experiences.

Show Review: Skeletons

In my title, I was going to use some pun along the lines of "rattle my bones," but I resisted.  I mentioned it, however, so that I could basically still use it.  Skeletons is an interesting act to follow, as it manifests itself in numerous forms, not unlike the projects of Phil Elvrum,  with a revolving cast of players, most of who attended Oberlin's music school together. The core concept of Skeletons is reminiscent of a jazzier Arkansas Man (I know most of you haven't heard of Arkansas Man, but that's part of being an esoterrorist) or a sound that would have been produced by Briano Eno in the late 70s/early 80s mixed with some post-free jazz that would be released on Ecstatic Peace Records.  You know what I'm talking about.  This particular performance was the "big band" version of the group, a 13-piece, fully orchestrated hour of movement, ecstasy, melancholy, and lots of dissonant brass.  The performance was one of a series being hosted by Roulette, a charming space in Soho that caters to new and experimental music in a pleasant, seated atmosphere that demands reverence to the artist. The band played two sets with a Mt. Eerie meets Clogs sort of arrangement, consisting of epic bursts of brass decaying into minimal trickles of acoustics with vocal moments tiptoeing in every so often, softly ponderous. Beautifully spacey movements would erupt into utter rock-outs or progressively groove and grow, fall, glide.  If you can't already tell, I'm a fan and plan to keep an eye on this group, as you should as well.

Reunited!

Do you think New York City is overrated? Me too.  So for this post, we're getting on the train to Jersey to show those New Yorkers back home how it's done.  No, I'm not talking Jersey shore and spray tans, I'm talking Ivy League and tweed.  Last weekend I participated in an annual ritual of the cult of Princeton, the Princeton Reunions.  Though I am not an alumnus, I do my best to make these get-togethers now, not just for the unlimited amounts of booze or the 2 million dollar fireworks display (because that is actually kind of offensive), but for what that charming, hyper-white town has to offer, two things I can't get enough of: The Princeton Record Exchange and Hoagie Haven.  While graduates return to reunite with one another and their campus, I am reuniting with these two businesses.  I'll start with the former.  

As I've stated before, NYC record stores aren't especially great, with Hospital being the exception.  But Princeton, New Jersey, has one of the best in the area.  This most likely isn't news to you, as the nearly 30 year-old store is quite famous for it's infinite stock, obscure collectibles, and knowledgeable staff (doesn't sound like the NY shops at all, does it?).  I first visited there as a guest with my friend Sharon, and have since visited once a year with an alumnus during reunions.  As always this was a delightful visit to the shop, with their 20th Century Composer section overflowing with gold.  I finally found an original pressing of John Cage's recorded performance of Variations IV, which isn't really rare, but I never had the cash on me whenever I encountered it.  There was also some cool Tristram Cary LPs and lots of noise.  My most notable find, however, was a 3 LP compilation released on Sub Rosa, a label out of Brussels, who have ambitiously attempted to catalog noteworthy but not necessarily rightfully praised innovators and contributors to last century's noise and electronic music.  This particular release, an anthology of noise & electronic music / second a-chronology volume 2, is the second installment of the label's history of deconstruction, featuring rare and/or previously unreleased material from Captain Beefheart, Luc Ferrari, Meira Asher, and many more.  The record's a lot of fun but also extremely academic, with thorough artist bios to accompany the record and elaborate track explanations from music writers or the artists themselves.  If you're some scumpunk futurist that doesn't care about the details, feel free to simply crank the record and rock out (or pass out during the drone tracks).  It's versatile that way.  Be sure to keep an eye out on more anthologies from this label as well.  I hear they even have one for the Chinese noise scene, which, I must agree with them, is pretty unheard of around these parts.

Okay, but this isn't the only reason to visit Jersey.  No sir, one must also appreciate the art of the Jersey sandwich, perfected into masterpieces at a little dive known to its die-hard, artery-clogged fans as Hoagie Haven (click the link and look at the menu, comes with a map to the hospital).  After drinking Bud Light all day at those darn Reunions tents, one requires enough savory flavor in one's meal to overpower the thick layer of beer mold resting on one's taste buds.  The Haven shall deliver... well, not really, and it's a bit of a walk out of the way, but worth it.  Now before you go categorizing these words into the pre-established schemas of your simple minds, you should know what I mean when I say hoagie.  It's not the Subway footlong.  It's not that pussy sandwich you ate at the corner deli.  No, it's more than those throwaway bite-sized snacks.  You see, at Hoagie Haven, every sandwich contains a secret ingredient: nards.  Big, hairy nards.  And you don't just eat these hoagies, you submit to them, let them teach you things.  You'll never understand until you eat one, but I'm going to at least try to explain the sandwiches' majesty to you
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Here's a picture of a wrapped hoagie on my lap.  I include my legs in this picture so that you can see the size in proportion to a 6'5 young man.  These sandwiches are 16 inches long, and despite whatever you've heard before, it is 16 inches that is the perfect size.

I had a rough schedule planned out, to where I was eating here at least once a day for 4 consecutive days.  It was tough on the body but was good for the soul.  I'll work up slowly and progressively to the most intense sandwich so that I don't scare you right away.  We begin with the heart stop, 16 inches of italian bread stuffed with cheesesteak, fried eggs, bacon, and mayonnaise, all dippied in the fryer for a finishing touch.  I had this without water and almost choked.

Next, the big cat.  This is six hamburger patties lined up on the bread, topped with bacon, eggs, and cheese.  I ordered it with the works, so it also had lettuce, tomato, and every kind of pepper you can think of.

Up next, the phat lady.  This one includes its own side on the inside, consisting of cheesesteak, cheesesticks, and french fries, all crammed into the bread, and once again, lightly fried all together.  Yum.  I always liked cheese on my sandwiches, but cheesesticks supply an additional fried texture and oily discharge that a typical deli slice can't deliver.

Lastly, and this is the most famous, most delicious of all, the Dirty Sanchez.  This is fried chicken cutlets and cheesesticks topped with Hoagie Haven's specialty sauce (some sort of mayo-based goodness).  Get it extra dirty for more sauce.  My god. If I only had videos of faces to show you.  Faces of those first-timers who think I am overreacting about a sandwich.  They change.  They transform.  They call their parents and tell them that they love them.

Retrospective Series #5 - Oh God (Part 1)

I know that some of you are more metal than me.  So I like bow ties and grew up in the suburbs. So what?  Some of you were already burning churches while I was still attending them.  This new series of posts, then, is not for you.  This is for those of us who were encouraged and convinced to rock out to tunes with biblical subtexts.  And still today, I remain fascinated by the social phenomenon that is religion and all of its by-products.  It's all just so fun!!!  After all, there would be no black metal if there had been no organized religion to piss off the members of Venom.  So slowly but surely, I intend to cover the lot of it. 

Being an anti-social 13 year-old, I didn't participate much in church, but I most certainly subscribed to the christian doctrine at that time, just in a private, self-concerned sort of way.  Around that time my family became members of a new Southern Baptist location, which had their youth led by a particular gentlemen known as Eddie.  Eddie was preoccupied with the dangers of secular music and focused his concerns on offering all of us kids alternatives to the mainstream.  I use the term alternative more specifically than generally, as these were exact matches to popular acts.  For instance, if you liked Korn and Rage Against the Machine, you were told to listen to Every Day Life (which was before Limp Bizkit, but uncannily identical).  I recall a poster hanging on the wall that even listed these popular bands and their christian counterparts.  It was all unapologetically derivative, and purposefully so.  The idea was to offer a quick fix for these kids before they were led astray by the questionable content of secular art.
This was the early to mid nineties, when the christian industry was just beginning to evolve past the simple, non-entertaining praise and worship genre, which was utilized in churches for serious acts of spiritualism but not fit for casual listening during parties. The 80s had few pioneers, most notably Stryper, the glam rock sensation that somehow carefully piloted the glamor of 80s arena rock and still managed to give "all glory to god."  They dressed like honeybees, or was it hornets?  By 1994, Tooth and Nail Records, founded by money-hungry Branden Ebel, made christian alternative a common, household genre.  Their early acts were mostly indie, punk, and hardcore, but certainly not without a ska band, which was the easiest sell to christians at the time (there are different theories as to why this was).  The label's earliest roster included bands that while obscure at the time, became quite successful later, some on a grand scale, some with mere cult-followings, such as MXPX, Danielson Famile, Starflyer 59, and so forth.  This was also the first self-identified christian label that was putting out non-evangelical records that were just performed by christians.  The Cootees even had a swear word in one their songs!  How progressive!  Anyway, Tooth and Nail sucks now, just like most other christian rock, but luckily this series is devoted to the past, so let's talk about the memorable acts.

Frodus.  Fuck.  I love this band.  Their full name was Frodus Conglomerate International, a title based on an evil mind-control organization of the same name on an episode of The Monkees.  Their songs are thus about mind control, and the lyrics are written in a manifesto style, with each song continuing a full narrative of their hunt for our heads.  Spastic, stylish, and at times surprisingly anthemic, Frodus delivers.  They left their christian label for a secular one, put out a 7-inch and another lp, then finally broke up in 2000, blaming the Y2K bug.  A reunion tour happened not long after.  Members have been in Black Sea and other projects, and Shelby Cinca composed some electronic music using a gameboy.

Horde.  This band is historically important to christianity, perhaps more than Jesus. Now, there has been LOTS of christian metal.  After all, fundamentalism is based on the same aggressive attitudes as metal, so it was always a good fit, although older generations thought of it as blasphemy.  We had Styper, Living Sacrifice (who began as a Slayer derivative, then have progressively become more... crap), Tourniquet, Extol (I like them), but before most of that was even in the beginning stages, Horde, a solo act by Australian Jayson Sherlock, was ripping Satan a new asshole.  Horde's only album was recorded and released in 1994, just as the second wave of Black Metal was occurring in Norway.  This was the first ever christian black metal record (later the genre would by dubbed unblack metal or white metal), and it fucking destroys.  Everything is there that you would want and expect of black metal: solid state guitars, lo-fi-as-fuck production, blast-beats, shrill screams.  Titillating!  Being that this record was produced at the peak of black metal church burnings and brutal slayings, it was important that Sherlock release the record anonymously.  Endless death threats streamed into the label's mailbox, demanding the identity of this poser.  He survived.  In fact, he even played his only show ever in Norway in 2006, though I've heard there was a second performance just this year.  The record has been re-released multiple times by other labels, and is even currently available on Amazon.

Retrospective Series #4 - Czech It Out! (sorry)

Today's addition to the retrospective series is Vera Chytilová's Fruit of Paradise (Ovoce stromu rajských jíme), an under-celebrated masterpiece of feminist avant-garde from the Czech New Wave.  When I lived in Murfreesboro, TN, there was an after-work routine that I followed.  I would first visit Video Culture, a small independent DVD rental shop stocked full of cult classics, film noir, and porn (some films being a combination of all 3 categories).  This place played a significant role in my goal to view every Criterion Collection release (at the time I had gotten up to about 130 out of 300).  After I made a selection, I would pick up a bag of Taco Bell and then return to my crappy apartment to privately partake in my nightly ritual.  It was at Video Culture that I discovered Fruit of Paradise, re-released and subtitled on DVD by Facets.  At the time, and probably still today, the film was the most visually stunning and musically provocative that I had seen since Holy Mountain, and that's saying a lot.  The film starts with kaleidoscope psychedelics and a trippy song about Adam and Eve, which is loosely used as a metaphoric framework for the film's story.  In this modern-day tale (or as modern as the 70s go), Eva and her boyfriend are attending an outdoor day spa with an anonymous serial killer present among the attendees.  While the narrative is present and developing (and thoroughly whimsical), the film at no point holds your experience directly to it.  The film is so rich in every aspect, one can view it simply for its vivid imagery and soundtrack, which alone act as the best music video you've probably ever seen.  The director's tendency toward slapstick carries over to this film from her first, Daisies, her debut which cost her a sentence of no movie-making for decades by declaration of the Soviets (part of the reason why Fruit of Paradise is so rare).  I could go on about the film's unique score, variations of cinematography (inside the killer's house is done in stop-motion!), and so forth, but this is really one of those films that has to be experienced.  Recommended for fans of Mathew Barney, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Jean-Luc Godard.

That's Springintgut to You, Pal, and a Big Fuck-You to Sleigh Bells

So I had time to spare around Washington Square and thus decided to stop by Other Music, a record store that could be cooler but does well with its location by NYU and its stock of popular titles. I perused their "Out" section until I was bored with their obvious essential selections of 20th Century composers (which could actually use a good dusting and a restock, must just be there for cred). I then flipped through their "experimental" vinyl (god...) and did my regular routine/ritual of documenting the unheard of artists in my cell phone for a later inspection. Right as I was nearing completion of my store browse, I came across a fascinating piece of collectability. Perhaps it was the fact that the retrospective series has me remembering a time when I was extremely influenced by packaging, but nonetheless, the physical properties of this recording had me in awe.
Above, I have provided an image of the packaging, and below, I have detailed the image for your full understanding. 

I took the record over to the cashier and asked if he knew the story behind it (I was expecting the same experience that I get at Hospital Productions, with passionate clerks excitedly explaining the awesomeness of the music that you are holding), to which he passively responded, "I don't know... it's an art piece." Oh really, fuckwad?  An art piece?  Very interesting.  I'm glad you know the store and its products so well.  You might as well be selling toothpaste at Duane Reade, instead of wasting my time with your bullshit responses.  So it was only like 6 bucks, so I said I would go ahead and get it.  He had to come back to the register since he had already walked away.  I gave him a debit card but told him just to run it as credit.  He asked for I.D.  and insisted that he can't run it without something containing a signature.  Just run it as debit then, you tit basket, and then you can go back to playing your National record with your hyper-styled faux-hawk and your shark-tooth necklace like the indie pop teenie twat that you are.   Man, I couldn't wait to get out of there and go back to my home at Hospital, while Other Music's trying-way-too-hard-to-not-care staff draw stick men on the counter while tapping their toes to whatever co0l-for-the-present-five-minutes band (let's say, Sleigh Bells).  Someone at Other Music, however, has got to be cool, because they sell Buddha Machines and this record in discussion.  I've yet to meet him/her and have only encountered these mainstream shopping mall versions of hipsters.

On to the sound of the record, though.  The artist is German electronica composer, Springintgut, otherwise known as Andreas Otto.  Most information on this guy is in German, so I went to his label's site and translated via Google.  Otto is a classically trained cellist and drummer who - in spite of his distaste for electronic music - began to explore new possibilities for electronic composition back in 2001.  His live performances usually consist of a modified cello and a video game joystick as a sound controller (see video below).  On this particular record, confusingly sharing the same title as his current LP, Park and Ride, the music that begins is what Otto will later describe as an "electronic music cliche," which plays continuously during his speech on the decaying state of music due to the increased involvement of computers and other technology.  So that's the record, a lecture over an example.  Side A fades out, and the lesson continues on Side B (do be careful with your needle placement on this oddly shaped disc).  During the lecture, Otto invites you to view some images with him, and he instructs you on how to find them on the internet (easy to find due to the weird names of the files).  Neat!  I would share the links, but it's way more fun to do while listening to the record, so go find it (and at this point, I really am not sure where else to find it, sorry).

All novelty aside (I'm surprised this is the first time I've actually written that on this blog), Otto's argument is valid and compelling, and this topic is of concern to many contemporary artists. The real charm of his lecture though, is that he is not romanticizing what listeners may call more "organic" acoustics, nor is he rebelling against the idea of incorporating new technologies into composition (after all, his other records are pretty much straight forward electronic music).  He instead offers a quirky bit of guidance to music on computers and ideas of how to translate music notation for artificial/alternative intelligence in attempt to avoid the end-product from sounding, to put it in Otto's words, so "stupid."

Now, going back to my previous mention of new craze Sleigh Bells, whose popularity crutches on its mere over-compressed production, I would like to consider what Otto would have to say about American electronic music, the current cool essentials, and the kid that checked me out at the store.  I can't assume without projecting, but I like to think we'd feel the same.

Here's a clip of Otto doing his thing: